1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique of reusing a system design architecture represented by a hierarchical structure and thereby automatically generating a new architecture for system components by computer processing.
2. Description of Related Art
In the manufacturing industries such as electronics and automotive industries, there is an urgent need to improve productivity in derivative product development by reuse of developed assets.
Japanese Patent JP-A 2006-343858 discloses one conventional technique of reusing developed assets. The patent discloses the technique of creating a system model by combining models of multiple parts. Specifically, storage devices are provided for storing parameters, tools, and model templates of multiple parts constituting a system, which are used to create a system model. Models of the parts are created by reading the model templates of the parts and the parameters from the storage devices, and assigning the model templates the parameters, in accordance with an instruction inputted by a user. Then the tools are read and run to combine the models of the parts.
K. Czarnecki, and M. Antkiewicz, “Mapping Features to Models: A Template Approach Based on Superimposed Variants,” Generative Programming and Component Engineering, 2005, provides another example of a conventional technique of reusing developed assets. The publication discloses the technique of generating a derivative model by allowing a user to previously describe variable model fragments in annotations superimposed on a base model, allowing the user to select a desired model fragment among the variable model fragments thus described and superimposed, and combining the selected model fragment and the base model.
P. Jayaraman, J. Whittle, A. Elkhodary and H. Gomaa, “Model Composition in Product Lines and Feature Interaction Detection Using Critical Pair Analysis,” Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems, 2007, provides still another conventional technique of reusing developed assets. This publication discloses the technique of generating a derived model by: previously preparing graph rewrite rules indicating variable parts of a base model; and rewriting the base model by using a selected rewrite rule.
Although the technique of Patent JP-A 2006-343858 allows the partial use of computation by a computer, selection on how existing architectures are combined is left to a human. The technique also requires a human to check if the model obtained by the combination meets requirements imposed on the system. Such features prevent more efficient reuse of design architectures.
The techniques of the two publications referred to above allow the use of computation by a computer. However, since the technique of K. Czarneckin and M. Antkiewicz, “Mapping Features to Models: A Template Approach Based on Superimposed Variants,” Generative Programming and Component Engineering, 2005, expresses a model in a graph superimposed by all variable points, the model is harder to read and more difficult to make an addition or change to when the model has a larger number of variable points. This prevents efficient reuse of large-scale design architectures.
Meanwhile, the technique of P. Jayaraman, J. Whittle and A. Elkhodary, H. Gomaa, “Model Composition in Product Lines and Feature Interaction Detection Using Critical Pair Analysis,” Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems, 2007, limits application targets to which the rewrite rules are applied, to concrete components of a graph (vertices and their attributes, and edges and their attributes, the vertices and edges being described as fixed points whose design has been defined). If such a limitation is eased so that vertices, which are described as variable points whose design has not been defined, can be included in the application targets, other complications arise with respect to writing rewrite rules, increasing time and complexity.